Alma Mićić, from Belgrade, Serbia, started performing at the age of 16 with a local quartet. Soon she became a featured vocalist with the Radio Belgrade Big Band and appeared at many local jazz festivals as well as on television and radio broadcasts. She attended Berklee College of Music in Boston on scholarship, graduating in 1999 with a Bachelors of Music degree in Jazz Performance. Since moving to New York City in 2000, Alma has released four albums: Introducing Alma (2004), Hours (2008), Tonight (2013), and That Old Feeling (2017). She has appeared at the Jazz Standard, Scullers, Iridium Jazz Club, Cecil’s Jazz Club, as well as festivals and concert halls in the US and internationally. She has been featured in major music publications. She is a recipient of the Cleo Laine Award for Outstanding Musicianship and the BRIO Award from the Bronx Council on the Arts.

Carolina Calvache from Cali, Colombia attended music school at the University of North Texas before settling in New York. In 2011, she performed at the Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival and at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. In 2014, she released her debut recording, Sotareño, an album of instrumental pieces of the jazz tradition that relate to her roots in Colombia. The album has been distributed internationally to critical acclaim. She is the first Colombian to join the roster of artists on Sunnyside Records. Carolina performs in two ensembles: the Carolina Calvache Quartet and Poems & Strings, an ensemble which blends classical influences and poetry.

Peruvian drummer and percussionist Héctor Morales blends the sounds of diverse musical traditions such as Afro-Peruvian, Jazz, and Latin Music into his playing as well as his composition. Héctor is currently based in the NYC area where he leads his band,The Afro-Peruvian Ensemble, and participates in other musical projects with upcoming young artists of the NYC music scene. He has been featured in videos produced by the LP instrument company and Congahead and has performed internationally on stages including Lincoln Center Outdoors, BAM, The National Museum of Peru, the Society of Musicians and Composers of Chile Auditorium, the Jerusalem Music Festival, and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Héctor graduated from the William Paterson University Jazz Program and has been teaching in NYC schools since 2003.

This program is part of City Lore’s current exhibit, What We Bring: New Immigrant Gifts.